Smart code sharing ‘systematic’

David Cottle says “private information” that was supposed to only be available on locked forums such as thoic.com’s “area 51” for Australian hackers kept finding its way onto other hacking websites. Photo: Louie Douvis

Angus Grigg

Sydney hacker David Cottle claims there was a systematic campaign to distribute secret operating codes for pay TV smart cards on the internet, so “any dummy” could download them.

Mr Cottle, who was heavily involved in the hacking community during pay TV’s infancy a decade ago, moderated the thoic.com piracy website which, unbeknown to him, was secretly funded by News Corp subsidiary NDS.

A special unit within NDS, the Operational Security team, is alleged to have promoted a wave of high-tech pay TV piracy in Australia and overseas that weakened News Corp’s commercial rivals. News and NDS strenuously deny the allegations.

As a moderator of thoic, Mr Cottle said he attempted to keep sensitive information, like operating codes, on the private “members-only” forums.

“We just tried to keep it out of the way of the public,” he told The Australian Financial Review yesterday.

“I objected to anyone exploiting this information that did not work it out for themselves.”

But Mr Cottle said the “private information” that was supposed to only be available on locked forums such as thoic.com’s “area 51” for Australian hackers kept finding its way onto other hacking websites.

“It meant that any dummy could download and exploit it,” he said. “People should work out how to do it themselves, not just be spoon-fed it.”

Mr Cottle said there were repeated examples of information that had been posted on members-only forums emerging shortly afterwards on public chat sites.